Hard disk drives (HDDs) are used to store digital data content for laptops, desktop computers, servers and other electronic devices in use today. Each of these electronic devices has its own requirements for the storage media to be used such as access time, capacity, form factor, reliability, and data throughput. Throughput represents the amount of data that a HDD can deliver at any given moment. The throughput is usually measured in bit(s) per second (bps).
Every HDD interface communicates with the rest of the computer via the computer input/output (I/O) bus. The interface is the communication channel over which the data flows as the data is read from or written to the HDD. There are many types of HDD interface and they include Integrated Drive Electronics (IDE), Advanced Technology Attachment (ATA), Small Computer System Interface (SCSI), Serial ATA (SATA), Serial Attached SCSI (SAS), and Fibre Channel. Bridge circuitry is sometimes used to connect HDDs to buses that they cannot communicate with natively, such as IEEE 1394 and Universal Serial Bus (USB). The list of HDD interfaces described in this section is not exhaustive and is constantly increasing to keep pace with the ever changing demands of the electronic devices which dictate the specifications of the HDDs and their interfaces. The interface can be a bottleneck to the overall performance of the electronic device if it cannot support the HDD's maximum throughput.
The SATA connector and the SAS connector are the two most commonly used connectors in the HDD industry today. The SATA headers are often used on HDDs that are fitted with laptops and desktop computers while the SAS headers are used on HDDs fitted with enterprise server systems.
Available in the market today are specialized production test equipment for the testing of HDDs before they are released for sale. However, most of these test equipments are designed specifically for HDDs with a particular type of interface.
It would be desirable to provide an electrical connector that can be used for the testing of a HDD regardless of whether the HDD is fitted with a SATA header or a SAS  header. It would be desirable if the electrical connector can further couple with the existing SAS socket thereby allowing the existing SAS socket to be used on the backplane of the printed circuit board (PCB) for the production test equipment. Additionally, it would also be desirable if the electrical connector can be easily modified to serve its purpose of connecting two other connectors as the HDD interface technology continues to evolve.